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Dessert

Lemon Custards

A custard made with egg yolks, boiling water, lemon rind, lemon juice, wine, and brandy, chilled after heating.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Lemon Custards

Why it works: Wine and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,427 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Lemon Custards

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs until they are very light.

  2. Add the boiling water, grated lemon rinds, and lemon juice.

  3. Stir over heat until thickened.

  4. Add the wine and brandy, then heat until scalding.

Chill and serve

  1. Pour into cups and refrigerate until cold.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  2. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Lemon + brandytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set with gentle heat, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the richness of the yolks.
Lemon rinds
Provide aromatic lemon oils that give the custard its fragrance.
Rich wine
Adds body, flavor and sweetness to the custard base.
Brandy
Contributes aroma and warmth to the finished custard.

The step that matters

Stir over heat until thickened. Egg yolks thicken as they warm, but if the heat is too high they can scramble and turn grainy. Keep the heat gentle and stir constantly so the custard thickens smoothly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, wine, brandy):

  1. Currantfits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, wine, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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